My Dottie Angel Dress

Has been a lovely 3 day weekend spent at home. I'd only been back at work for 3 days after a 47 day break so really it didn't really feel like anything special...
The Superbowl is on NZ tv for the first time (well it might have been on before, but since we have never had pay tv...). I have no idea what is going on and it is stop, start and tv ads every few minutes. Also can't get over why there are so many people on the sideline. I have have no idea what their role is?!
Anyway I've been standing there doing an entire summer's worth of ironing (under the air con of course!). One item I just ironed was my Dottie Angel Dress which I finished last night.
I am as proud as punch with it! I am sure it is not perfect, but I do love it so and know it will be worn a lot.

The gorgeous tree fabric is an organic Cloud9 "moody blues" by geninne. I picked it up from Spotlight and paid all of $26 for it! The linen was from Centrepoint Fabrics in Newmarket and the two tiny pieces probably cost about $3.
I read an awful lot of other blogger's posts on making this dress and took my time over it. I did ditch the seam binding with bias binding and also did not do the french seams on the sides of the dresses.
I found sewing the pockets on tricky with the bias binding but tacked around the edges first which helped. (not sure if the pockets are perfectly arranged and my pleat was a new thing to me).
The tucks in the side of the dress where the ties go under were new to me too. I also noticed that many people thought the ties were too highly placed for them but seemed pretty perfect for me.
I sewed up the sleeves then the sides; then un-picked and did them the other way round. I think it came out better this way for me - the sleeves were noted as being something to watch!

Overall - love. Directions not too hard to follow for me. I will most certainly sew again (and have fabric all ready to go). You can certainly tweak the pattern to suit - the options for fabric/adornements etc are limitless!
I am very proud of the first ever dress I have sewn. (now you need a pic of me in it - I'll wear it to school tomorrow where the fashion police - the students ;) - can critique!)